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Aaron

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Wondering what most on here do when they have a calf that won't suck all teats. Have an 8 year old cow with big stout month old bull calf, calf only sucks one tit. Have milked out the cow for the 4th time today, and actually dipped the one tit he does suck, in a mixture of pine tar and lard, to discourage him from it. Let cow out and he sucked off the tit with the tar and avoided the rest.

Getting tired of this hassle. Not my cow, but the old man's and he reads the forum quite a bit and can't believe that most would just ship the pair to be rid of the hassle, which is what I think should happen at this point. :x
 
I'd just let them go... No way am I going to go milking out a cow for a calf...Either he learns or he is a dink in the fall - but where our cows are it wouldn't even be possible to try and milk out without a rodeo...
I've had a couple old cows end up with "goat bags" only two udders functioning- that still brought in pretty nice calves...

And I wouldn't pawn the problem off to someone else selling them as a pair...That doesn't seem right either....
 
My cows have to work for me, not vice versa. I would ship her in a heartbeat after she raised this calf.
 
wdcook said:
My cows have to work for me, not vice versa. I would ship her in a heartbeat after she raised this calf.
Click to expand...

now how is this the cow's fault??!! :???:
 
The first time I ever saw that was last year on a bought cow. The calf sucked only the one front teat. The calf still did well. I shipped the cow.

Does the cow in question have larger size teats?
 
Yanuck said:
wdcook said:
My cows have to work for me, not vice versa. I would ship her in a heartbeat after she raised this calf.
Click to expand...

now how is this the cow's fault??!! :???:
Click to expand...

I didn't say it was the cows fault. I don't care whose fault it is. I'm like Oldtimer. If the cows udder is ruined she goes.

I guess instead of saying 'my cows,' I should have said my cattle.

I'm a former dairyman. With very rare exception my milking days are over.
 
There seems to be an assumption that the cows teat size/udder quality is part of the problem here. It may or may not be. Maybe the calf can only count to one.
 
Aaron I had that problem with a full blood GV of mine a few years ago. I stripped her out and the milk looked good, I finally did a mastitis test on her and the three quarters tested positive. Got her cleared up with special formula and her bull calf then emptied all 4 quarters and had a very nice WW.

I would look more closely at her milk quality, if you can borrow a mastitis test kit from a dairy near by you and just make sure.
 
No dairy blood on my side of the tree. I would let her raise it on 1 and ship her when the calf is ready to wean. Of course if you had her in HD might be on to something.
 
Sounds like a calf problem to me. Don't blame the cow for a dumb calf.If she raises a good sized calf I would keep the cow and see what happens next year. Her udder should be ok (unless she is full of mastitis).Are you sure the calf isn't a brown swiss? LOL
 
I have a cow that developed mastitis. Never have had any with it and did'nt catch it until it was to late. Yesterday we sorted her off at branding as she was infected bad bad. Today I ran her in and loaded her up on LA 200 as she was swinging the whole rear quater which was exploded basically fell out of the udder. It's quite gross and I don't know if she'll live but we'll keep an eye on it. I guess that's what happens when you feed to much corn silage.
 
Denny, mastitis and feed are not related .

Mastitis is usually caused by an open teat and bacteria getting into it.

From the sounds of it your cow has an ecoli infection in the udder and if you really want to help her you had better get better meds from your vet asap .
 
Dylan Biggs said:
The first time I ever saw that was last year on a bought cow. The calf sucked only the one front teat. The calf still did well. I shipped the cow.

Does the cow in question have larger size teats?
Click to expand...

Yes. Hasn't been bad up to this year. I suppose the early spring helped to spur extra milk production that her udder couldn't handle. Normally her calves are so aggressive that they nearly suck her dry in the first day.

HD, she would test positive for mastitis under the test. Watery milk, no hard core, yet. But have seen calves drink from a lot worse case of mastitis.

As it looks, either I ship it now (solid calf, with cow in good flesh with poor udder as a pair) or in the fall as a runt calf and fleshier cow for cull, providing she doesn't get gangrene and blow her udder apart.

I guess I will try one more time tomorrow and this time duct-tape the one teat. After that I quit.
 
Strip her out and inject Special Formula from your vet into each infected quarter for a day or two. Also give give her a shot of LA pen (hit her hard). Let her raise her calf as once she has her mastitis cleared up the calf will drink from all with out a problem. Ship her in the fall as a cull as her teats most likely do not seal properly when she is dry.
 
Git rid of her, but don't sell them as a pair to pawn off your troubles on someone else. Keep the calf to use as a graft, or sell it as a baby calf to someone who needs one.
 
She is definitely on the knock list at our place. We may or may not keep the calf on her until fall if we don't have anything else to graft. She would get early weaned and a shot of estrumate in the fall to make 100% sure she is open and would be shipped for slaughter.
I have better things to do than milk a cow, and if I was going to milk cows I would go buy some quota and make it worth my while...
 
Or you could turn her into a Hereford and flush her-there's a thread on catlletoday with one of the worst uddered cows I've ever seen-that they are selling flush calves from. Unbelievable!!!
 
One should only flush heifers that cost a lot of money and failed to breed. It is much better to perpetuate lots of genetics that come in open early, rather than waiting all that time and investing all that money for the problems to appear later. :lol: :lol:
 

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